Utah man accused of murdering, dissecting his grandmother

Salt Lake City
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A Utah man in police custody and charged with aggravated murder has allegedly confessed to stabbing his grandmother to death before dissecting and disemboweling her body.

The Associated Press reports that 21-year-old Zachary Cole Weston, accused of stabbing 84-year-old Joyce Dexter 111 times, told Salt Lake City police that he also slit his grandmother's throat before cutting open her heart and her belly and removing several internal organs.

Police went to Dexter's Salt Lake City home on October 3 after neighbors called 911 reporting screams. Police officers responding to the call found Weston standing over the woman's body wielding a bloody knife. According to court records, his hands and clothing were also covered in blood.

Weston was previously arrested for allegedly pushing his mother and striking a police officer in 2010 and pleaded guilty to a single assault charge. He was also charged with assault for striking his father last month.

The aggravated murder charge against Weston could possibly result in a death sentence.

Weston's family told the Salt Lake Tribune that he suffers from mental illness and that his life is a "tragedy in slow motion."

"Joyce was a martyr by any definition," uncle Charles Kulander told the paper. "If anybody was closer and loved Zach more than her, I don't know how. She was always there for him. The rest of us just had it up to here but [she] always kept the door open."